


Made My World More Perfect

by Frances



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Best Friends, F/M, Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Mutual Pining, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30062856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frances/pseuds/Frances
Summary: Onua had asked him for a “conversation”, though that was almost certainly too generous of a noun. “Sometimes I worry that Daine may have gotten too attached to you.”He shrugged, suddenly wary of that same old accusation. “Is it still too attached if it’s mutual?”“No, I think you two are very good for each other. If nothing else, I’m thrilled you have someone else to discuss finch beaks with.”5 + 1. Five times Numair has to discuss his relationship with Daine.
Relationships: Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau & Numair Salmalín, Numair Salmalín & Veralidaine Sarrasri, Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Made My World More Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> “No more words. We know them all, all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world more perfect.”  
> -Nation, Terry Pratchett, which I love despite its tendency to punch me in the gut

1.

“So, unfortunately,” Jon’s face took on an edge of disgust. Numair knew that this meeting was something Jon had promised someone, probably an unbelievably crusty and deliberately unpleasant someone, to have rather than one in which he actually hoped to accomplish anything. “He’s insisting that you be barred from any, and I’m quoting here, ‘unsupervised access’ to Daine.”

“Jon,” Numair let out a long, slow sigh. “Please tell me you don’t actually believe that I’ve-”

“Of course not.”  
  
He felt himself relax. “A fourteen-year-old?”  
  
The king’s face softened into something amused. “Allegedly.” He replied ruefully.

“I assume he’s hoping that he can hire her on in his stables if I’m not there to insist she’s worth a mage’s wage, not a hostler’s?”

Jon paused. “Most likely. Though for the record, that isn’t the case.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Jon started to smile. “Though to be fair, he also loathes the ground you walk upon.”  
  
Numair grinned at that. “He does. Obviously, I won’t be severing either the personal or professional aspects of that relationship, regardless of his preferences on that matter.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“Would a non-specific apology make your life any easier?”  
  
“Actually, I think the best you can do here is work to never lay eyes on him again.”  
  
“Then I will do exactly that.” 

2.

The woman was beautiful and had been pleasant, witty company until the exact moment she laid eyes on Daine. She snickered, a single handkerchief to her immaculately painted face, murmuring something about ‘poor breeding’ in an artful whisper that was designed to carry.

It would have been better, he thought, if Daine had looked stricken or tearful or at least surprised. Instead she froze mid-step and then turned away from him, refusing to acknowledge that she’d either heard the now quite plain woman or seen him at all. He excused himself quite brusquely and took several long strides to catch up with her.

He touched her shoulder and she looked up at him with a wince. They walked in step in silence before she finally asked him, in a soft voice. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“That individuals who owe you their lives, however indirectly, feel compelled on the basis of uninteresting facts to be unpleasant at balls? Yes. Hugely.”

“No, well, not that. Not exactly.”  
  
“Then what?”

“I’m always around.” She began, stiff and wary.  
  
“I would have it no other way.” He replied mildly and she relaxed a bit.

“I know that a lot of people have said that’s because.” Daine was blushing now and waving her dominant hand in the air. 

“Magelet. The only aspect of our close association that bothers me is the trouble it’s brought you.” 

“But folks take the same amount of time out of their day to be nasty to you and is it really worth it?”  
  
“Of course it is.” He could hear the surprise in his own voice. “Servants have been positing that my touch would turn them to stone long before you came here and will continue long after, should I ever have to endure your departure.”

“Doesn’t that bother you, then?”

“Not especially,” He replied levelly. “Though I am faced with it directly much less often than you are.”

“But wouldn’t your life be easier if--”  
  
“No,” He told her mildly. “Not in any way that matters. I thought you understood that I prefer your company to nearly anyone else’s.”

“I wasn’t fishing for no compliments.” Her wary look had verged directly into suspicion.  
  
“I didn’t think that you were. If you’d like for us to adopt a more distant or professional relationship for the sake of your own reputation,” He had to make himself take his next breath - “I would of course understand and would only regret the cultural values rather--”  
  
“Don’t be stupid,” She told him. “I want no such thing.”  
  
“Then it would appear that we’re in agreement.” He touched her shoulder again and she leaned into him, wrapping him in a brief and objectively awkward hug.  
  
“You can go back. To her table. I don’t care.” Daine told him softly.  
  
“I do care and I’m not tempted in the slightest.” He felt a smile pull at his face. “Though there is supposed to be an unusually good opportunity to view a nebula in about two hours, if you’re not otherwise occupied-”  
  
“I’m not.” She looked up at him for a long moment and then tried again. “But you really don’t have to leave the whole party just because--”  
  
“The party seems much less appealing than it did twenty minutes ago.”

“All right.” She tucked a hand into his forearm then. “Lead on then, and don’t you blame me when you die alone.” 

He laughed at that and she looked pleased. “I’d never dream of it.” 




Onua had asked him for a “conversation”, though that was almost certainly too generous of a noun. “Sometimes I worry that Daine may have gotten too attached to you.”

He shrugged, suddenly wary of that same old accusation. “Is it still too attached if it’s mutual?”

“No, I think you two are very good for each other. If nothing else, I’m thrilled you have someone else to discuss finch beaks with.”  
  
“I’ll have you know that--”

She smiled up at him before her face lapsed back into worry. “And she’s doing so much better these days. She’s not as tense or reactive as she was even a year ago.”

“I agree.” He spoke slowly. “So what do you see as the problem?”

“I get the impression, sometimes, that she maybe has hopes. With you.”  
  
Numair did not have to fake his scoff. “I very sincerely doubt it.”  
  
“Why are you so sure?” Onua looked a bit on edge.  
  
“She’s barely interested in boys her own age, or girls either for that matter, which I’m not going to pretend not be relieved about.”

Her tone was careful. “I noticed that exact thing myself.”  
  
Numair sighed. “I know she’s been a lot more inclined towards expressing affection physically with me lately. I did notice. But I assumed, and will continue to, that that has a lot more to do with Carthak than any inclination towards someone that minded her as a child.”

Onua’s shoulders lowered back down from her ears. “All right. Just so long as you know what it might look like.”

“Oh, I am well aware.” He paused for a long moment. “Thank you.”  
  
Onua gave him a sideways glance. “For?”

“I’m grateful that you’d take such an interest. You’re among the few who is willing to raise issues with me directly and I appreciate it.”

She cuffed him on the shoulder. “The only people who are scared of you haven’t accompanied you to buy a shirt.”

“That does encompass most of the world.” 

“Exactly.”

  
  


4.

He was moderating his stride length so that Alanna could chat while they walked instead of half-jogging. She was still mid-rant about Jon and the Mindelan page. It was now the fourth time he’d heard it but he nodded and made sympathetic noises anyway, out of both love and the certainty that it was well past his turn to listen tolerantly while someone else went on and on.  
  
On the other side of a line of bushes, two squires were walking by deep in conference, heads tilted towards each other for all that wasn’t doing to muffle their voices. 

He heard one of them refer to Daine by name and felt his dread steadily mount as Alanna paused in the middle of calling Jon an ingrate to listen. 

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Oh, is she not available?”

“No, no,” Some thankfully incomprehensible whispering. “From what I understand, she’s very available. If you...” Thankfully the conversation lapsed back into murmurs that he couldn’t separate out into the words.

“Speaking of ingrates,” Alanna continued with a heartfelt eyeroll. “You would not believe the way I heard some of the squires talk about women.”  
  
“I’m going to bet I would, actually.” He said lightly and Alanna laughed. 

“I got some very embarrassed apologies after the whole thing came out.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
Alanna snorted. “On the other hand, it was a good way to get to know who they actually were. Raoul, for instance, always told them to shut up and Jon has been talking like a diplomat since he was eight.” 

He inhaled to say something else but it didn’t drown out the squire’s next comment.

“No, no, her teacher. The tall fellow. Have you seen the way he looks at her?”  
  
The other one laughed. “Yeah, I’ve seen him. I get it. I talk to her at a ball and I wake up a tree.” 

“Anyway, she’s passed her first year?” Numair prompted. He was doing it all wrong. He knew he was. He was blushing and stooped over and he hadn’t broken out of his wince at all in time and Alanna was watching him with steadily rising brows.

“Then again, maybe you wouldn’t be quite so short. As an oak.”

The other squire pulled the short one into a headlock and the whole encounter degraded into an impromptu wrestling match. 

“Seriously?” Alanna demanded of him, eyebrows raised. When she saw his wince deepen something softened on her face. “Anyway, yes, she passed her first year. Because of course she did.”

  
  
  
  
  


5.

Onua touched his shoulder gently. “I told you once that she had hopes.”

He hugged her tightly for a moment, feeling so cared for and understood. “You did. But--”

“I don’t think that ever changed.”

Numair shook his head sharply, once. “Please do not have the opposite discussion with her.”  
  
“What do you think refusing to talk about anything is going to get you?”  
  
“Some semblance of morality.”

“Look, I know this isn’t exactly expected and if it was any other two people or your respective ages, I’d be sharpening my knives, but I know you aren’t like that. I’m not here to accuse you of anything”

“You probably should be.”

“I don’t know that just having a feeling makes you less or worse.”

“I suppose not. But acting on it--”  
  
“I’m not saying any of this to be nice--”

“When have you ever said anything to be nice?” 

She cuffed him and the moment shifted into something softer as he managed a ragged breath. “Not in this past decade.”  
  
“I didn’t ask for this to happen. And I’m not proud of it. It may be the thing in my entire life that I am least proud of.”

Onua began to smile slowly. 

He groaned, planting his face in his hands. “And please don’t start naming other contenders.”

“Lady Orla?”  
  
“I had no idea that she would ever-”  
  
“She really did not like that you have female friends.”  
  
“Honestly. If you’d asked me to list two hundred things she might have done in a fit of pique I would not have been able to come up with--”  
  
“It’s true. I can’t fault her creativity. Or industry.”  
  
“I have apologized a hundred times.”

The conversation swerved back into its earlier, overwrought, topics. “Don’t martyr yourself over this. I’m not sure if you’re giving her too much or too little credit but this will become exactly as big of a problem as you allow it to.”  
  
“I can’t gamble her. I just can’t. Even if such a thing would be entirely unremarkable and commented upon by no one.” 

“Hm.” Onua shrugged. “People aren’t nearly as eager to be rid of you as you seem to think.”

Numair shrugged. “That may be.” 

Onua eyed him for a steadying moment. “Obviously it’s none of my business. But it’s been pretty painful to watch.”  
  
He allowed himself an indulgent wince. “It’s that obvious?”

“To anyone that’s paying attention, I’m afraid.”  
  
“Just you, then?”  
  
“So you may end up in a situation where you have to decide who she hears it from.”  
  
Numair felt his nose wrinkle and tried to force down his own panic. “Lovely.”

  
  


+1

She turned to him, inhaled to speak and said the words with the same tone she’d once used to ask him whether or not the stars had their own magic. “Do you ever think about maybe having a different kind of relationship?”

He could feel himself blinking rapidly and turning red. He sputtered, rallied, sputtered again and forced himself to conclude nothing about what precisely she was referring to. “What do you mean?”  
  
Daine frowned at that. “With me, is what I mean. A different kind of relationship with me.”

“While more specific, that does not in fact-”  
  
“Fine. A romantic one, then.”

“With you.” Numair repeated hesitantly. 

Her eyes rolled. “No, with Cloud.”

“Daine.” She met his gaze squarely, face slightly red but otherwise unflinching. “Are you sure you actually want the answer to that question?”

“Numair,” her eyebrows were raised. “I did ask. What else would I want? Calm down. I’m not asking for a blood oath or a spring wedding.”

“I didn’t think that you were.”

“Okay then. Is that something you’ve thought about?”

He whispered, like that would help at all. “Yes.”  
  
She smiled hugely. “That’s what I thought was going on.”

Numair stared at her. “Did you even want to be right?”

“Obviously. What’d you decide, after thinking?”

“Nothing. That’s something that I continue to think about. Often, actually.” 

“Okay.” She stretched the syllable out. “What I meant is, and I think you know this is what I meant, would you be interested in that?”

He took a breath. 

“You said you’ve thought about it. So what did you actually think?”

“Is this question hypothetical?”

She pressed her face into her hands. “Shakith wept, no. Of course not.” Daine touched his shoulder carefully. “Look, this isn’t the end of anything. Nothing is even going to change unless you want it to. Please stop looking at me like you burned down your library again.”

“I don’t want you to feel less comfortable around me.”

“Great. I don’t want that either.” She continued to stare at him with a main course of steadily escalating disbelief but now with a generous side of pity.  
  
“It’s okay,” Daine tried again, patting his hand and sliding a little farther away. “Look. I don’t understand why you’re so determined to not have this conversation. But as I’m already this far out on a limb and I’d really just rather finish this up right now.”

“Did Onua say something to you?” He couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking. 

The disbelief was definitely winning now. “Onua says lots of things to me. Every day.”  
  
“No, I meant about me.” 

“You do come up from time to time.” She sighed. “Okay. So being coy isn’t getting us anywhere. Here it is: I would like to try, if you’re interested. And not if you’re not. It really is that simple. So that’s the question. I’d like an answer.”

“I am interested. But...” Trying to convey coherent thoughts was like wrangling an entire family of snakes back into a sack, a comparison he could accurately make due to personal experience.  
  
“All right.” She was smiling again but there was a hard edge he’d never seen on her face before. “I suppose it’s one of those things where I’d do for a bit of fun but for something you tell other folks about you’d prefer someone--”

“No. Of course not.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Daine continued. “I understand. You aren’t the first or the second to say as much and at least you have the grace to be embarrassed. I’m the one that brought this up in the first place and I’m not even saying no.” 

“No, you don’t understand. There is no one at all that I’d prefer to you, independent of duration.” 

Her eyebrows went straight up, all venom completely gone. “If you say so.”

He started to talk and then stopped. “I do. I would not be able to be involved with you in any way that was casual.”

“What does that mean? Just something with just us?”  
  
“Yes. At a minimum.”  
  
“That’s all fine and dandy. That’s what I’d prefer my own self.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to promise me anything. But I also can’t be something you’re pursuing out of boredom or convenience.”

Daine spoke very carefully, concern now the dominant emotion on her features. “I wouldn’t...Well, I would and I have with plenty other folk but I always made myself clear first thing. If that’s what I was looking for I’d tell you straight away.”

He nodded slowly. “Are you sure this is something you actually want?”  
  
She was still looking at him with soft pity. “Is it that hard to believe someone might?”

Numair paused and actually thought about the answer, considered his chronic moments of absent inconsideration across his few attempts at being a partner. “Only a little. Mostly it’s hard to believe that you would.”

“Okay. Well, I can’t think of any other reason I’d be bringing this up.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” He knew the words were trite and stupid and not even quite what he meant as soon as he said them. 

Daine was graceful about the misstep. “Well, of course not. You never owed me nothing, either, but you gave me plenty just the same. I’m right grateful and I don’t say as much nearly as often as I ought. You don’t have to give me any more, just because I’m asking.”

Numair took a deep breath. “I’m concerned that this is a concept that I’m a lot more interested in than you are.”  
  
She slid into his lap and pressed her face into his neck, embracing him tightly. His first instinct was to be careful, to hold himself stiffly, to only touch her shoulder. Slowly it occurred to him that, considering the context, it was acceptable to tangle his fingers in her hair and stroke her hip with a thumb. Daine hummed contentedly and wriggled a bit closer. He couldn’t hear what she was muttering into his neck and asked her to repeat herself. 

“I doubt that. I really do.” 

She leaned back to grin up at him. “We’ve always been close. I think this will probably go just fine.”

“Yes,” He found himself saying, cognition stalled by the solid warmth of her, by the hesitant but quite smug smile on her face. “Yes.” 

  
  
  
  



End file.
